


Tyomnaya Noch'

by chaotic_gastropod



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alcohol, M/M, RusAme, Slow Burn, Swearing, WWII, alfred is from new york, ivan doesnt speak good english, ivan plays accordion, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22636558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaotic_gastropod/pseuds/chaotic_gastropod
Summary: Alfred is a doctor with the Red Cross. He finds himself in Stalingrad, dying from hypothermia, when he is rescued by a Russian who has a smile for every occasion.
Relationships: America & Lithuania (Hetalia), America & Russia (Hetalia), America/Russia (Hetalia)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 141





	1. Chapter One

Alfred Jones stared at the dark void that was the Russian sky. Snowflakes collected on his eyelashes. It was freezing.

His legs were trapped under rubble. The hospital he was working in had exploded. The sick people he made more alive were now more dead. Soon he’d be dead too. He stared up to the heavens and asked for answers. Am I a hero? He asked the sky. Dead heroes from ages past looked down on him, but they did not answer. He was helping people. He came to Stalingrad to help people who made more people dead, and now he was dying. Is this holy retribution? He asked the sky. It ignored him. How cruel.

The hypothermia was slowing his brain. Alfred knew this. He knew his organs were slowing, and his fingers were icicles and soon his brain would be too frozen to know it was frozen. His legs were trapped and warm and his arms were free and frozen. His white doctor's jacket blended into the snow surrounding him. If he had a mirror, he knew his face would be as blue as the blue in his eyes that made the girls swoon.

The crunch of boots on the snow was louder than the explosion was to Alfred’s ears. He perked up, his brain scrabbling at its last reserves of consciousness like a drowning man to a floating log. He willed his voice to speak, but all that came out was unintelligible cries of someone with no voice. His arms were numb and his voice box was broken. The crunching stopped.

It came closer. His brain soared, yes! He will live. Someone was breathing loudly. So loud it was excessive. The loud breathing personified itself in the frozen air above his face. Somewhere his brain dimly acknowledged it was him, gasping for breath with frozen lungs.

Someone was speaking softly. The pressure on his legs was gone. The soft voice soothed his aching bones and frozen brain. He was being carried by warm hands. He snuggled into the soft fabric on which he was resting his head. “Goodnight Ma…” Above him, the flickering stars faded away to darkness.

…

When Alfred woke up, it was in flashes. He was travelling through time and space. He was in New York making pancakes with his brother. He was in school, studying hearts and blood and disease. Most of the time, he was on the edge of a volcano. The heat was eating him inside out, his blood was molten lava.

In many ways, Alfred realized the volcano was very similar to the Russian sky. It was a void that embodied heat and promised death, except the sky was cold.

He woke up again, and this time, the place was more unfamiliar than the volcano. It also felt more real, or as real as a place could feel to someone delirious like him. Through blurry vision, he saw he was in a small bedroom. There were no windows, but a large rug filled the space on the wall opposite the bed. To his left was a small bedside table made of a small crate, and on it stood his glasses, unharmed from the explosion. He put them on with clumsy fingers.

The room, in all it’s clarity, was very bland. On the bedside table was the only splash of colour in the room. A small glass vase of paper sunflowers.

A heavy comforter trapped his legs in the bed. He was dressed minimally, in what he could feel was an undershirt and loose pants, hopefully his own. Despite feeling ill and confused, he supposed this was the best he'd felt in a while.

The door to the room opened and a strange man walked in. The man was huge, possibly the biggest man Alfred had ever seen. He was followed by a smaller man, who was carrying a wash basin and cloth.

They stopped awkwardly by the door when they realized Alfred was awake. The huge man said something in what he knew was Russian but didn't understand. Alfred opened his mouth to tell him so, but heaving coughs came out in place of words. They racked his form and rattled his skull, and they hurt. The large man rushed over, and without hesitation rubbed at his back with a big hand. He spoke in Russian again, cooing at Alfred in soft tones.

The coughs subsided, and the smaller man with the wash bin was still at the doorway. The large man beckoned him over. Hesitantly, he approached Alfred’s bed. Alfred still did not know where he was. He felt dizzy and ill, and the coughs left his body tired.

The huge man said something hurriedly in Russian, to which the short man finally made eye contact with Alfred. He appeared nervous.

“You are American, yes?”

The small man spoke English with a thick Eastern European accent, but it was not Russian. Alfred, for the first time in his life, did not feel like speaking. He nodded his head, but that hurt too.

“My name is Toris. You are in my home. You had hypothermia, so we have been helping you get better. Ivan found you outside and brought you here.” Toris was small and timid compared to the huge man beside him. His brown hair was hacked off at the shoulders, and his eyes were wide and frightful as if everything he saw was horrifying.

The huge man smiled. His teeth were slightly crooked, but it was a handsome smile. “Ivan is me.” He was barely comprehensible through his accent. His English was limited, explained Toris. Ivan had cropped blonde hair and a long nose. His face was somehow simultaneously baby-like and defined. Around his neck hung a wilting scarf that was once pink but now a matted off-white.

“You name?” Asked Ivan. Alfred found he liked his voice, it was high pitched and soft for such a huge man. Unexpected, but not unpleasant.

Alfred tried talking again, but still could not will his thawed voice box to speak. He coughed a little, cleared his throat, and the two men watched as his mouth silently spoke his name.

Frustrated, Alfred lifted his hands and scrabbled at his throat. Speak! His throat did not appreciate that and refused to speak. “It's okay,” said Toris. “Next time.”

Alfred found he was suddenly very tired. He nodded off in the bed as the two strangers conversed quietly beside him.

…

The next time Alfred awoke, he felt more aware. His legs still hurt, but he did not feel dizzy or delirious. He sat up and didn't feel like vomiting his guts out, which he considered a win. Someone had removed his glasses, and they were folded up on the beside table. Next to him, in a small wooden chair that somehow held up a massive figure, the huge man- Ivan, was reading a novel. Toris was nowhere in sight.

His throat felt dry, so he cleared it. “Hey pal,” Alfred said awkwardly. What else was there to say? Ivan jumped, snapping his novel closed.

“Awake.” He said in his thick accent and high pitched voice. It wasn't a question, but Alfred nodded anyway. Ivan seemed to be studying Alfred. Whatever he found made him smile.

“Thank you for saving me, by the way. I really didn't want to die out there in the cold.” Alfred started. Ivan simply stared, so Alfred took that as his cue to continue. “I always wanted to die falling off the Statue of Liberty, or taking a bullet for the president, ya know? And now that I haven't died in Russia, I can have my true American death, so thank you.” Talking didn't hurt, which was good. Alfred had a lot of things to say.

Perhaps it was too many things to say, because Ivan was looking at him blankly, a slight smile still etched onto his face except now it was hesitant. “Sorry, I just wanted to say. Thank you.”

“Hmmm…” Ivan replied, looking pensive. It was a bit unnerving, how Ivan seemed so intensely there yet far away at the same time. “How you say… You have welcome.”

Alfred smiled. He missed smiling. There was nothing to smile about in war, but now in an unfamiliar bedroom in occupied Russia with no windows, a stranger who was the biggest man Alfred has ever seen made him smile by butchering a common English phrase.

“Oh and, it’s Alfred,” He stated, out of nowhere to any onlookers but out of somewhere to the two of them. “Dr. Alfred F. Jones, if ya want to be formal.”

“Awlfyred.” Ivan repeated. He frowned. “Awwlllfyred.”

“It's okay, Eye-van.” Alfred joked. Why he was joking when his situation was not funny, he did not know. But he wanted to make Ivan laugh.

Instead Ivan glared. It was unexpectedly serious and took the baby-ness out of his baby-face. “No, I-vahn.”

“Eye-van.”

“Awlfyred,” Ivan said darkly, leaning into Alfred’s space. Alfred stared straight back into Ivan’s eyes. He was not scared because he was never scared of anything but Ivan was factually huge so he was logically scared. He was, afterall, still crippled from the waist down.

Except Ivan’s face broke into a smile, but this one was amused and a tad mocking. Alfred found he liked this smile better than the previous ones. Ivan was surrounded by war but had a smile for every occasion.

“Funny, Fyredka.” 

“Fredka?” Alfred had never had any nicknames. His brother called him Alfie to piss him off sometimes, but that was not a nickname. That was a let's-piss-off-Alfred name.

“Da.” Ivan replied. “Fyredka from Amerika.”

When Ivan said it, it did not sound like a let’s-piss-off-Alfred name. It sounded pure.


	2. Chapter Two

It is a full week before Alfred could get out of bed. His right leg was almost fully healed, but his left caused him to hobble rather than walk. He could never be a super spy now, as wherever he went he made a _thump, thump, thump_.

Ivan did his best to keep him entertained while he was confined to the windowless bedroom. The language barrier kept their conversations limited, but that did not stop Ivan. Not much could stop Ivan, Alfred thought, with his huge form and personality to match. He spoke of his home in Moscow in broken English. He talked about his two sisters, and his mother and their cat. He talked about his tattered scarf, and how it was knitted by his older sister.

Alfred asked what he was doing in Stalingrad, when his home was in Moscow. Ivan did not like that question.

One day, he brought an accordion to the weak wooden chair beside the bed. It was small, with buttons on the side where the keyboard usually was. Alfred had never seen an accordion like that before. “Toris’,” Ivan explained. His huge hands somehow hit the buttons with such precision to create songs that danced around the room. At some points Ivan sang along. His voice deepened, and the emotions of his face translated to his words. Alfred loved him for his voice and it’s expressions. He did not understand a word, but he could feel them.

On his fifth day, Ivan had to leave to do something. Alfred was dozing in bed when the head of a small boy peeked into his bedroom. He looked around the room, eyes shyly glancing over to Alfred before skittering away. Alfred smiled at him. He had no idea there were children living in Toris’ house.

“Hello,” He said warmly. Back home Alfred had a half-brother named Peter, who celebrated his tenth birthday shortly before Alfred left for his service. This boy looked around the same age.

The boy opened the door just enough to slip in, then shut it gently behind him. He padded up to Alfreds bed, eyeing him timidly the whole time. He was lanky and blond, dressed in weathered suspenders and a wrinkled dress shirt.

Timidly, the boy leaned into Alfred’s space, all while Alfred sat there expectantly. Truth be told, he loved his brother, and he missed being a young boy full of curiosity and bravado and innocence.

“Amerika?” The boy whispered conspiratorially. He was dead serious.

Alfred attempted to match his level of intensity. “Yes,” he whispered back, smothering a grin.

The boy’s eyes widened in amazement. A whole American, sleeping in his guest bedroom in occupied Russia. How scandalous, he must be thinking.

The door opened, and Toris walked in looking furious and no longer timid. “Raivis!” He said harshly but not loud. The universe could not allow Toris to raise his voice. He followed up with something that was neither Russian nor English. The boy left the room with his head hung.

Toris closed the door behind Raivis, then turned to Alfred. “Sorry, that was my son. I told him not to disturb you, it won't happen again.”

“No it's okay,” Alfred said, “He wasn't disturbing me. Seems like a good kid.”

Toris’ expression softened. “Yes, he is a very good kid. Just with a tendency to get into trouble.”

“I didn't know you had a son.” Alfred said conversationally. Toris did not talk much. He would come, check Alfred’s temperature, ask about his legs, then leave.

“Oh, yes, well, he is a very quiet boy. Always reading something.” Toris looked far away for a moment, “He gets that from me, I think. Certainly not his mother.”

“You have a wife?” Alfred asks.

“Yes. My Felicja, she is my Polish sweetheart. But she is not here with us, now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Genuinely, he was sorry. Toris was not a person who deserved to be surrounded by death.

“No, don't be, she is alive. She is in a prison camp somewhere I don't know. She writes me letters.”

Toris sat quietly in the wooden chair. Alfred nodded once in acknowledgement, but did not speak. He had seen too many men die in the hospital to give empty comforts.

“Do you love anyone, Alfred?” Asked Toris eventually.

Does he love anyone? He thought about his brothers at home- Matthew, his twin, who moved to Canada and made mean pancakes and knew what Alfred was thinking before he said anything. And Peter, little Peter who was small but acted big, which Alfred admired. He loved his family, but that's not what Toris was asking. He was asking about the girls he slept with in highschool, and the nurse who had smiled at him extra-sweetly in the hospital but was probably dead now, and Ivan who smiled always and sang with emotions.

“I don't know,” He replied, and couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or not.

“That’s okay,” Toris said. “I didn’t know for a while, either.”

…

The next day, Ivan was still not back. Raivis slipped into Alfred’s room again.

He crept right up to Alfred’s bed, then revealed a book he had hidden in his jacket. It was old and worn with a torn up cover. The title read _Moby Dick_ by Herman Melville.

“Amerika,” Raivis whispered, again, pointing at the book. He placed it on the bedside table then left.

…

It took Alfred roughly seven hours to read _Moby Dick_. He was never one for literature, much to his father’s disappointment, but the adventure sucked him in afterall. He took only two breaks, which were when Toris entered with water and bread and he had to hide the book under the covers of the bed.

After finishing, he scanned the book again, finding nothing better to do. He found his favourite quote and committed it to memory: I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. If Ivan could understand English, he would like that one.

…

The ability to walk again brought new experiences. He left the bedroom with no windows. Ivan helped him walk to the living room, which consisted of a small couch and table where a neat deck of cards rested. In the corner stood a record player. There was one window in the living room, and the curtains were drawn tightly shut. A slim strip sunlight peeked through, and Alfred basked in it, eyes shut and head turned up.

Toris was in the kitchen making soup. Pots and spoons were clattering as gently as they could be clattered. At the dining table, which could be seen from the living room, sat young Raivis buried deep in a book. Ivan sat on the couch, observing Alfred with one of his softer smiles.”Moy bumazhnyy podsolnukh.”

“Your what?” Alfred asked, turning away from the window.

“Ah, Fyredka, do not mind.”

…

One night, two days later, once Raivis had gone to bed and the house was quiet, Alfred, Ivan, and Taurus sat around the dining table. On the table a large bottle of vodka sat between them, among three glasses and a scattered deck of forgotten cards.

Ivan’s face was lit up red, as were the other two’s, and he was sharing a story in slurred broken English of the time a prostitute returned his lost cat. Most of the time Alfred could barely understand what he was saying, but he still let out exuberant laughter at every word, punctuated by his newly developed hiccups. His laughter was drowned out only by Ivan’s, who when drunk let out roars that rivaled the air raid sirens. Even Toris was chuckling good naturedly, albeit much more restrained.

“All right, I got one,” Alfred said once they had quieted down. “One time I called the bank ‘cause they sent me a letter about a bill I didn't pay, when—hic—I did pay it, so I called them up all pissed off and stuff. The operator connects me to a poor old fella, and I'm all—hic—mad but before I can say anything he tells me, ‘sir, I’m sorry sir but we can’t serve you at this moment,” and I’m thinking, ‘whaddya mean you can’t serve me, its twelve o’clock on a Tuesday!’ So I tell ‘im that, and he’s all ‘I know sir, but we’ve got a problem at the bank. Someone smuggled three live geese in and let them loose in the lobby',” Alfred pauses to take a sip of his vodka. Toris is staring at him expectantly, smothering a laugh, and Ivan is already giggling to himself. “So I’m like, this guys full of shit! But then the line goes suddenly dead, and all I hear are three distinct quacks getting closer to the phone, and somewhere someone yells ‘GET HIM!’ and I'm here- pissin’ myself laughing in my apartment...”

Ivan smothered his laughs with his hand, although Alfred was sure he understood less than half of the story. Toris also cracked up at the end. “Fuck geese,” he slurred, which was uncharacteristic of sober Toris. “There were geese in Lithuania. The feathered fucks attacked me when I was five-years-old. My Mama had to fight them off with a broom.”

Alfred barked out a laugh. So that was where Toris was from.

“You said before that.” Ivan said. He chuckled at the memory. “Goose bit your arm.”

“Yeah yeah,” Said Toris. “Mama thought I got rabies.”

“How do you guys know each other anyways?” Alfred asked.

Ivan and Toris shared a look. “Me and Toris, way back.” Said Ivan. “I know brother, Eduard. I get Toris out of tight spot. Get him job in Stalingrad.”

Toris stared at his vodka. “Yeah. He went to school with my brother in Moscow, for engineering.”

“Ah.” Alfred said. Nothing else to say. Neither seemed like they really wanted to discuss it further. “Where did you learn to speak English?”

At this, Toris brightened. “I spent a year in America when I was 21, back in ‘32. While in Chicago, I went to a Lithuanian bar where this crazy drunk asked me to dance with his daughter…”

It was a good night.

…

The next morning, Ivan woke up Alfred bright and early. Alfred was terribly hungover. Ivan seemed better than ever.

“Happy news, Fyredka.” He whispered in the bedroom with no windows. “I have way to get Fyradka home.”

“What?” He asked, brain telling him to wake up because this was important. “Back to America?”

“Da.” Ivan smiled. This one was not soft. It was hard and sad and happy all at once. “No worry. I have people to get Fyredka to Amerika in one Fyredka, da?”

Alfred was not worried. He was not happy and he was not sad. “Right.”

…

That night, Ivan once again retrieved Toris’ old accordion. He played a pattern of four repeating chords, each a different degree of melancholy. Above the notes, he sang, and Alfred understood the words with his heart.

 _Temnaya noch' tol'ko puli svistyat po stepi_ ,

Toris sat at the dining table, his back to the living room, nursing a glass of vodka.

 _Kak ya lyublyu glubinu tvoikh laskovykh glaz,  
Kak ya khochu k nim prizhat'sya seychas gubami_!

Alfred stood up, performing a one man waltz in the middle of the small living room. The steps were awkward and off beat due to his crippled leg, but Ivan smiled around the words of the song.

_Temnaya noch' razdelyayet lyubimaya nas,_

It was a love song, Alfred was sure. Ivan sang the words with love and sorrow and affection and grief. The tone vocalized the smile he gave earlier in the bedroom with no windows.

_Radostno mne ya spokoyen v smertel'nom boyu,  
Znayu vstretish' s lyubov'yu menya chto b so mnoy ni sluchilos'._

…

That night, Ivan entered Alfred’s bedroom, impossibly silent for such a large man.

“Tomorrow.” He whispered in his heavily accented voice that was soft and high pitched and Alfred loved him for it.

Alfred kept his eyes closed. He was waiting for something, He waited and kept his eyes closed and when he eventually opened them, Ivan was already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I could not wait to write this so screw it im posting. Next chapter will be the last.
> 
> The song sang is Tyomnaya noch' or Dark Night which I named this fic after, its a beautiful Russian WWII song. Technically it came out after I imagine this story taking place but not my much so I'm including it anyway.
> 
> Thank you for reading! I would love to hear your thoughts on the story :)


	3. Chapter Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: non-graphic descriptions of blood and violence

Alfred would have slept much easier at night if war was morally righteous, and the people he made more alive didn't make more people dead. But war was not clear. There was the good and the bad, and the really really bad, but for most people, they were stuck in oblivion. Between heaven and hell, there was only the gray.

Therefore, Alfred could not hold a grudge against others. He was not mad about their actions. Nor was he wasn't happy. He just was.

Ivan had been pacing all day. He was not smiling, which was unfortunate. They were leaving at dusk

The knock at the door came around noon. Ivan, restless, went to answer. He peeped warily through the peephole, and then exploded with unexpected emotion.

"TY CHERTOVSKI SUKA!" He did not open the door. Instead, he took Toris by the throat and slammed him against the wall. The pictures hanging in the hallway clattered to the ground, shattering the portrait of a happy family.

Toris gagged, weakly grasping at the hands on his windpipe. Alfred did not think it was possible for Ivan, who smiled no matter what, to show this much rage. He was a volcano hot enough to melt the Russian winter. His face twisted, and his huge form became impossibly more intimidating.

"Traitor!" He growled like a dangerous snow leopard with a Russian accent. 

Alfred tugged at Ivan's arm. "Stop!" He cried. "Ivan, let him down, we have to go!" He did not beg out of concern for Toris. He and Toris were in the same shade of gray. He begged because the Germans outside the door were getting impatient.

Ivan looked over to Alfred, met his eyes, and in a moment that felt like a lot of moments but was really just one, he smiled and dropped Toris. Then punched him square in the face, like an angry Lithuanian mother had done to a certain goose.

They ran.

The door to the house splintered open with the horrible crunch of a dragon's maw that shook the old home to the core. In poured soldiers, snapping with their rifles held high. Horrible shouts of god-knows-what in German echoed around them as they escaped through the back window.

Faintly, he heard Toris' sob. "Where is she?! Where is she…"

Soldiers had already circled the house, spotting them immediately and opening fire, moving in for the kill.

Alfred tried to keep pace with Ivan. One mad dash from the house to the forest behind them and they'd be home-free. Just seconds of no man's lands where life and death existed equally and God flipped a coin to decide which.

The bullets whizzed past their faces, past their arms and legs, but did not hit. They were halfway way there. His crippled leg had made it halfway way and would make it another half, God had flipped heads and soon the pair would be sitting in New York, drinking hot cocoa and hopefully not thinking of this exact moment.

Except- God was not always merciful. Alfred had forgotten, he forgot he worked to make people more alive who made others more dead. Bringer of life to the bringers of death.

The ground was frozen and unforgiving. His crippled leg stumbled on a patch of ice sent by God Himself. Searing pain tore through his legs up to his brain. No bullets landed, but they might as well have. He lifted his head from the mud. He'd called tails and now he will pay.

Except- Ivan was merciful. Ivan who's smiles were too soft for the harsh war. He turned back even after calling heads. His gun, which Alfred did not even realize he'd been carrying, took down two men. He hoisted Alfred up by the shoulder, and escaped to the forest.

They ran. They ran and they ran and Alfred could not run so Ivan ran for him.

Eventually they reached a small settlement, where the fragmented remains of people who called tails remained. Ivan supported Alfred with a strong arm over his shoulder, and they dredged up the dilapidated steps into a stone church. 

The church was not much. A couple of rows of pews sat before a humble altar. Ivan led Alfred to the frontmost pew, where the two heavily sat down as if weighted by their sins.

It felt like years had been spent in that forest, when truly it must have been no more than an hour. Each hobbling step he took was so painful, it stretched time itself.

Alfred looked over at Ivan sat next to him on the pew. He was hunched over, hands on his knees, gasping in the frigid air.

Slowly, he turned his right shoulder forward, pawing at something on his back. "Blyad," he hissed through chattering teeth.

"What's wrong?" Alfred asked, unseeing from his spot on Ivan's left. He did not sound frantic or crazy, he was completely calm.

"No worries, Fyredka." Ivan said. Turning away from his shoulder, he fixed Alfred a smile. It was soft and tired and unexpectedly resigned. Yes worries.

"You're hurt." Alfred said. It wasn't a question. It did not want an answer.

"I said no worries, Fyredka- agh!" Involuntarily Ivan cried out when moving his right arm. The adrenaline was wearing off and their wounds were beginning to be felt as intended.

The cry was a bullet to Alfred's own heart. "It's okay." He said. "It's okay, I'm a doctor."

He got up from the pew, and hobbled around Ivan to his injured side, ignoring the pain gnawing at him from his leg.

The back of Ivan's brown civilian coat was stained red. It was freezing, but he'd have to take it off to treat the wound.

"Your jacket needs to come off." Alfred said. His voice was weak. His fingers were already frozen and stiff. These were no conditions for a surgery. "I'll cut it off, with, with something. And then I'll use your knife to scoop out the bullets, wrap it with my shirt." There were options. It was fine. "You'll be as good as new in no time." It was completely fine.

"Nyet." Ivan said. "Nyet, Fyredka, listen." He pulled Alfred tight with his good arm. Alfred tucked his head into Ivan's neck, into the soft cloth of the tattered scarf. "I leave this church, and you go to Amerika. Promise? You go to Amerika, have big life. Say privyet to brother Matthew. Love good girl."

Alfred shook his head. The tears on his face froze before they fell, stopped before they could even begin their journey. "No, no Ivan. It's only a scratch. I'm a doctor…"

"Hey, Fyredka," Ivan said. Alfred looked up.

They kissed. They kissed and it was everything a kiss should not be. It was sad. It was cold. It was perfect.

After what felt like centuries, longer than the forest, longer than Alfred's time on earth, they pulled back. Ivan smiled at him, and it was happy. The emotions of his smile were for once, not enigmatic. It was the happy smile of someone in love. It was the embodiment of his love songs, his laughter, his soft voice.

Alfred returned it. God, he smiled and he was happy too. He could no longer feel his face, but he knew somehow that it stretched into the biggest smile he'd possibly ever smiled.

Then Ivan coughed. He turned away and coughed and happy red phlegm came out. It was the happiest moment of Alfred's life and Ivan was coughing blood and dust and ash and death.

He looked down. Ivan's middle was stained with red. It wasn't just his shoulder, it wasn't just Alfred's leg, and it wasn't just the cold. The organs that made Ivan more alive were making him more dead.

"You fucker." Alfred gasped. "You stupid son of a bitch. Why did you come back. Why didn't you keep going?!" He clutched at Ivan's sleeves, held on and didn't let go. His hands were frozen, his heart was on fire.

Ivan wheezed. "Ya lyublyu tyebya," he clutched, equally as frantic, at Alfred's shoulders. "Ya lyublyu tyebya fsyem syertsem."

"I know. I know I know I know," Alfred whispered. "I love you too."

Alfred wasn't sure how long he sat there on the pew, clutching Ivan and freezing to death. Time froze from the cold. Ivan's guttural wheezes slowed, as did his own rasping breaths.

With bleary eyes, Alfred stared at the crucifix mounted atop the altar.

_Forgive me Father, for I have sinned, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do-_

Up above, through the holes in the roof of the decrepit church, the stars were faintly flickering in the dark sky.

 _Temnaya noch' razdelyayet lyubimaya nas._  
…

Alfred Jones woke up. He was back in the windowless room with the paper sunflowers. The comforter was tucked tightly around his legs.

His eyes peeled open reluctantly, but when he reached for his glasses there was only dead space. He jerked his arm back in surprise. It hit the metallic pole of the bed's headboard, letting off a clinical _ping_.

Alfred opened his eyes fully. Blurry vision scanned the room. This was not New York, this was not the volcano, and it certainly was not the windowless bedroom in Toris' old house.

It was a field hospital.

"Oh, the Amerikan is awake."

A gangly officer stood at Alfred's bedside. He wore a cap proudly brandishing the red star.

He was tall and skinny, with a hard expression and hard bones visible through his skin. Nothing like Ivan. Nothing like him at all.

"What…"

"You're in field hospital, in Stalingrad. Our scouts found you half frozen to death, with ID in jacket. We have reclaimed much of land stolen by Nazis. Is that not great news, comrade?" The gangly soldier adjusted his cap with a satisfied smile. Alfred couldn't care less.

"What happened… the man I was with?"

"The deserter? Got what he fucking deserved."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading :)

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Thank you for reading the first chapter. I hope to make this fic 3 or 4 chapters long, but we'll see. I'm not sure how to add inspired works, but this was inspired by Zachem Ya by TwiGo on fanfiction . net, and The Road of Life by December Dragon on AO3. Please check out both authors and their works, they have written amazing hetalia fic.


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